Chris Beales – 16 March 2016

A series of ‘climate forums’ kicked off on Wednesday 16 March when Chris Beales, a local hydrologist and climate change specialist, discussed the links between ‘Extreme Events’ – weather events that can dramatically affect our lives, our homes and our communities – and climate change – which is often described by quite modest-sounding increases in global average temperature.

Extreme Events and Climate Change poster The presentation showed that global and UK average temperatures are rising and are now at their warmest since records began, and the number of Extreme Events is increasing and records for temperature and rainfall are being broken.

Chris said that average temperatures are projected to rise significantly and we can expect to see even more Extreme Events – bigger and more frequent droughts and floods and heatwaves – which we need to prepare for.

Chris commented: “The world has important choices to make: if we significantly cut our use of coal, oil and gas … and meet the targets agreed in the Paris conference in December … we could limit the average rise in temperature to two degrees. Otherwise the climate could change very dramatically and the accompanying Extreme Events are going to be very difficult to deal with!”